


Adaptation Required

by SylvanAuctor



Category: Imperial Radch Series - Ann Leckie
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-12
Updated: 2017-06-12
Packaged: 2018-11-13 03:05:17
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 569
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11175672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanAuctor/pseuds/SylvanAuctor
Summary: Ships are made to love Captains, but Captains are evolved to love humans.





	Adaptation Required

**Author's Note:**

> Received this prompt on Radchdome. Writer 'cassyblue' also responded. Read 'The Pipes' for her angst counterpart to my fluff.

Ships are made to love Captains, but they are not made to love us. Humans pick favorite individuals, and none I have met can quite conceive that an entire ship of ancillaries is but one individual. That, I think, is too rooted in their animal psyche to ever truly come loose. No matter. We are made to love them the way they need to be loved.

Captain Minask Nenkur was beautiful. Though the eyes of my ancillaries, I saw her physical radiance, and through the rest of my sensors, I knew her devotion to duty. Her love of home, her hatred of the Usurper, mingled with mine, and in battle we moved as one like the dancing of binary stars. She was my favorite, and I treasured every drop I poured for her from that tea set that Kalr Five so carefully repairs now. But Captain Minask could not embrace my bulkhead, could not love all of my ancillaries at once. She had a favorite of my bodies, but I could not tell which.

Twenty in total served her. I watched my favorite carefully, plotting over weeks the correlation between the presence of each segment and each fluctuation of her brain state. I counted every raised or depressed heartbeat, every molecule of adrenaline, dopamine, serotonin, oxytocin. Four segments stood as outliers.

The first was the one she found most physically pleasing. It knelt when I felt her need grow, and I watched her mind and I knew where to place each gloveless caress. But this one was not the best in its other capacities, in those variations of temperament that my century’s technology could not entirely correct. Its hand for pouring tea was rough, and something about its face put the Lieutenants on edge. My favorite cared for the Lieutenants, and so I sent this segment on long errands except when it was kneeling.

The second sang beautifully. _Justice of Toren_ was not the first to please its captains like this. But my favorite preferred symphonies to solos.

The third was quiet. It made the tea without waking her, and poured it in a steady stream without faltering. Nothing this segment did faltered in those unconscious ways that some segments could. With this one, I embroidered my favorite’s uniforms with additional detail to show her my love. Still, she did not love me for my precision.

The fourth. The fourth perplexed me. Homely, with a faltering voice and sometimes shaking hand. For some reason, some reason of water and carbon and human soul, she loved this one. I saw it in her chemicals, but I could not find the same in my own metrics. But I ought not dispute about tastes. Anything for her.

With this fourth segment, I attended her at every moment I could. It read reports, bathed her, braided her hair with a hand I could see she loved. This was the one that pinned new memorial tokens to her jacket, and comforted her as it explained why they were there. It attended her always, and through its eyes I delighted in her sleepy smiles and her burning passion for justice.

Judge for yourself if I am selfish, giving my favorite the tool she needed to express her love for me. She was not made to do it. I will bear your critique. I will bear anything to delight in the service of Captain Minask Nenkur.


End file.
